Martin Jarvis is the voice of Just William, Bertie Wooster and Twix chocolate. But he lost out on the Toilet Duck gig to Chris Tarrant
John Gielgud never did voice-overs – despite his instrument being described by Alec Guinness as ‘a silver trumpet muffled in silk’. Now almost every thesp, knighted or not, is keen to race into Soho or, with the new upsurge in working from home, duck under a duvet and breathe heavily into a friendly microphone. As a young actor, I couldn’t break into that world of extra dosh. I did Dickens, Shakespeare and Wodehouse on radio and television – but that was ‘proper acting’, not being ‘a gob on a stick’. Eventually, I found myself in a voice studio, recording a nature commentary. Not big advertising bucks but maybe a start as a reach-me-down Attenborough. As I was leaving, a lady stopped me: ‘Have you got a few minutes, Martin? Can you come into the booth and say something into the mic?’ I could. She told me their ‘voice’ hadn’t turned...
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